Loved the Stars So Fondly
by sarsaparillia
Summary: Eridia Ampora is not prepared to be walking her moirail through the mess of bleeding gutterbeast entrails that is the beginning of the Second Rebellion. — genderbent hemo-flip; Eridan, Feferi, Vriska, Equius.
1. turning saints into the sea

**disclaimer**: disclaimed.  
**dedication**: to partycannon and all my hamsteak followers over on tumblr. love youuuu.  
**notes**: I've been thinking about this for a while. I have a _notebook_.

**chapter title**: turning saints into the sea  
**summary**: Eridia Ampora is not prepared to be walking her moirail through the mess of bleeding gutterbeast entrails that is the beginning of the Second Rebellion. — genderbent hemo-flip; Eridan, Feferi, Vriska.

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Eridia comes blowing into the shipwreck hive she and Fef have called home for sweeps, hollering for him like the world is about to fall down on them both. Her moirail is nowhere to be found—not on deck, not below deck, and the burning in her gut tells her that Fef is down below again, beneath the ocean waves. The sun's just beginning to rise, and Sisters, she's exhausted.

"Fef!" she screams out over the water. "Fef, where are you!?"

His head pops out of the water just below her, seven-sweeps-long horns first then dark hair then forehead, fuchsia eyes, and the rest of him. "Oh, oh, there you are! Glub! You were gone for nights and nights! Glub!"

"Get up here, brinesucker, yer gonne die when the sun comes up, an the daymares'll get you an I won't come out t'save you!" Eridia says, and hauls her silly moirail all the way up to deck. She pats his perfect face all over, nearly delirious with love for this silly troll boy. He smells of salt-rime and something more toxic, something clear and green, and she sighs aloud. "You've been talkin to the Sisters again, haven't you."

Fefear laughs and winds his arms around her. "One death, 'Dia. Just one, and we'll be glubbing at the top of the craptrap again!"

"Shore," Eridia deadpans. Fef loves the stupid fishpuns, and Eridia can't help herself. "I got news."

"Yeah?" says Fefear, almost absently. He's patting her down, too, searching her all over for any new cuts and bruises. As always, there are more than a few, but Eridia doesn't mind because it keeps Fefear safe.

Keeping Fefear safe is her top priority.

"The bluebloods want an uprisin, Fef," Eridia says softly. "They want a king."

"So?"

Eridia sighs, long and slow, and clings to him. "They want _you_, love."

His face pulls into a frown or-something-like-it, and Eridia's whole being _aches_ for him. He should never look like that—Fefear is never meant to look like that. She pats his cheeks again, keeps his face in her cupped hands, and she loves him, she _loves_ him.

"Hey, hey, quit that, you're lookin sad, Fef!" she murmurs. Stolen gems catch alongside his mouth when he turns his face to kiss her palm and she sighs at him again. His blood'll be all over her rings, and she'll have to clean them, and it won't even be the first time.

_Moron_, she thinks, fond and worried and wondering if this is even close to the right thing. Fefear is—he's not always _there_. The ocean's pickled his brain, strung him out and made him _unreal_.

Eridia knows that because she's pulled him back from the edge so many times.

He can't live without her, she knows. It's okay, because she can't live without him, either. The sun's not peeking over the horizon, but already their hive is soaked in bloody golden light. For a minute, they stand there on the deck, perfectly close and perfectly content.

"C'mon, Dia," Fefear sings. The sound of it skitters over her scales. Fef's singing can wake the dead on a good night, and tonight's worse than usual. Eridia pats his face again. They've had seven sweeps to pull each other out of the mire that is. No one's died, yet, and they haven't drowned. Eridia doesn't even think Fef _could_ drown, not even if he tried; he's too much a fish.

"About the uprisin, Fef—" Eridia starts.

The webbing at the base of his fingers is cool over her lips, and she huffs at him. He grins brightly and curls around her, the gentle press of the gill-flaps along his ribs sealed over as he breathes above water.

"We'll glub it out in the evening," he laughs into her shoulder. "We gotta sle—ep, miss grumpy-gills!"

Eridia runs the tips of her claws through his hair, and just shakes her head.

Silly Fefear.

Glub about it in the morning… of course he _would_ say that.

The pair of them slip inside, down through the cobbled-together hallways. The sea's salt has soldiered the walls together better than Eridia or Fefear ever could, and the stink of rust and ocean-breeze infect everything. The rime gets into all their clothes, but the water loves them, loves them both. The thin lime green of the sopor casts a curious sleep-drug over them as they slide through the entrance to Fefear's respite block. Eridia's gaze sweeps across the barrels bobbing in the corner sunk into the sea, and she herds Fef to his cocoon.

"Go t'sleep, shark-bait," Eridia shoves him gently in the general direction of the sopor, and waits until he's skimmed his clothes off and mostly submerged before she bops over to the edge of the cocoon and pats his face over and over again to reassure herself he's still real.

"Pale for you," he mumbles. His claws score along her cheek in the shape of a tiny diamond. Eridia thinks she would get it tattooed there if she could, but she's a vain girl, and the thought of that happening makes her want to shrink into nothingness.

"Pale for you," she croons back at him. She waits for his lashes to flutter, but they don't. He sort of just watches her like she's some incredible treasure, and Eridia knows that he's got it all wrong; he's the treasure, and she's just the sailor that stole it somewhere along the way.

(She's not very good at sharing, but then, who is?)

Eridia doesn't sleep if Fefear doesn't.

She waits and waits.

"Aren't ya gonna sleep, Fef?"

He hauls himself up and clucks at her. The suddenly he's tugging at her shirt, trying to skim it off and she thinks—_oh, Fef, you're so impossible_. The shirt's silk, the colour washed out to a pale lilac, and she loves it. Eridia is _vain_, really vain, so she figures she might as well take it off herself just so that he doesn't ruin it.

They don't really have the money to afford another one, and they both know it.

"You don't sleep enough, Dia," Fefear chuckles.

"And you do? Oi, quit it, yer gonna tear it!" Eridia complains, and she skitters out of his reach just long enough to carefully pull the shirt off over her head and fold it neatly against the far wall, where it _wouldn't get wet_. Her skirt went next, and the faded length of Fef-colour cloth she used to tie her hair back along with it left in a neat little pile.

He does pull her into the sopor, and it's, Sisters, it's so thin, she's going to have to get another barrel or three because this is almost as bad as sleeping cold is and she's not really in the mood. Fefear's dreams are worse when the sopor is like this, too.

"Hey, Fef," Eridia mumbles.

He makes a sleepy sound in reply.

"I won't let you get hurt," she says. "Promise."

She thinks she can hear him laughing in her ear, but then the sopor finally takes over, and the Lady of Light and Rain tempts her into oblivion.

—

The evening comes all too soon.

Eridia's eyes are gummed closed with sopor, stuffed up her aural canals and she thinks she's a little dizzy with it. Fuckin sopor, if she's accidentally overdosed again, she's going to have a fit.

Fefear's up on deck. She can hear him wailing out at the water—Sisters, he's probably trying to sing up some supper. With his luck, they'll get a shark or something equally dangerous that'll chomp all up in their hive's space and it'll take half a season to get everything back to normal. This mansion wasn't built in a day, and Eridia has no desire to rebuild it _yet again_. She's no masochist.

(Well, not really, anyway; she doesn't have a kismesis or a matesprite. She just has Fef, and frankly, he's more than enough to keep her hands full. Eridia has neither the time nor the will to keep another happy. Things even out, anyway.)

She wipes the slick shine of sopor off, shivering away the cold salt air. She's naked as a wriggler, naked of pretense and fashion and lies and all the things she uses to keep herself standing on a good day.

The bruises splotch angry and violet along her sides. Her gill-flaps have gucked up with blood and Eridia tries to breathe through them, but the pain is pan-scrambling every time she does. She presses her fingers to them, and it hurts, it hurts, it _hurts_.

"Sisters," she murmurs. Everything inside is tight and pulsing with the daymares that dance behind her oculars, seared bright and colourful into her thinkpan. Eridia dunks her head in a barrel of seawater to unclog her aurals and wash the sopor out of her hair. The salt-rime stings in a good way.

And then she's tying her sopping hair back and wriggling into her shirt and her skirt. They're beautiful things, her shirt and her skirt, but…

Well, Eridia is _vain_. She wants a dress, but never brings it up.

They don't have the money.

Not right now, anyway.

And Eridia isn't about to bring Fef along with her to the Capitol just to have a _dress_. She's lasted this long—she can last another half-sweep. It won't kill her. She doesn't have long to wait, not now.

Fefear doesn't have long to wait, either.

Eridia takes the stairs two at a time, and bursts out into the early evening moonlight. She sucks in air through the sharp points of her teeth, and—

A cool body slams into hers, and Eridia finds herself swung up into her moirail's arms and having him rain kisses all over her face.

"Evenin to you, too, Fef," Eridia smiles into his throat.

His claws rake through her hair, and she can almost taste his excitement. "Today, Dia, today!"

"I know, I know!" she laughs, and holds his infinitely precious face in her hands. "Fef, about Vris…"

"I'll glub like a good li—ttl—e fish!" he bubbles. He is the picture of everything good in the world, and Eridia's heart aches a little, a single loud _throb_ of snow-pale pity in the middle of her pusher-cavity. She traces the long hooked line of his nose, and when he kisses the tip of her finger, she nearly breaks into bright purple waterworks.

"Vris is—he's different. He don't… He's not…"

Fefear's laughter is like breaking glass. "Dia, Dia, you won't hear a pe—ep outta me!"

That's not what Eridia's worried about, but she's not going to say that. "Don't let 'im under yer scales, Fef," she sighs instead. "He's gonna try, 'cos that's what Vris does. He don't mean anyfin by it, but…"

He catches the trail of her words from the corner of her mouth and follows it down her throat. His hands are even colder than hers are, but the cold keeps her afloat.

Eridia's so pale for this boy she doesn't even know what to do with herself.

"Can we _go_?" Fef asks.

Eridia pats his cheek, indulgent. He is so predictable (and so impatient, but that is something else entirely). "Go dunk yer glutes in the ocean, Fef, an cool yer jets. We got time. Vris ain't 'spectin us 'til—"

He grabs her hands, bounces on the balls of his feet; he can't even hold his own excitement in, and that's just so _Fef_. He swoops down on her again and the soft cloud of his hair sends her into fits.

"Can't we go _now_?" he wheedles. In the moonlight, he's striking; he's all lit up silver and fuchsia, the long shadow of his horns twisting across his face like light through seawater. He looks like he can take on the world. She _knows_ he can take on the world.

Dear Sisters.

Fucker knows she can't deny him anything.

"_Fine_," she puffs out.

His claws chuck under her chin, and she almost vomits diamonds.

He's going to be the end of her.

"Pale for you," Fefear sings at her.

"Pale for you," Eridia smiles with her eyes and her mouth and her heart.

"Can we _go_ now?"

"Mhmm," Eridia hums. "Let's get yer shit 'afore we go."

Fefear tips his head, and Eridia knows he probably doesn't even realize that he's not wearing hardly anything at all. Fef doesn't feel the cold the way the rest of the world does; coldblood idiot.

"Pants, Fef," Eridia says, and he chuckles.

"O'course, Dia," he says, and points to where his clothes wave like dark flags on a line out over the water. He has the right of it, of course—seadweller all in the dark, he thinks it'd be best to blend in. Safest, that way.

Eridia's pride would never let her even think about it.

She wears her washed-out silks and her rings and her necklaces; she keeps her hip popped out so that when she walks, she _sashays_, and the shucking dagger she wears strapped to her thigh is visible through the press of fabric against skin. And with her vestigial gills open and flared bright fucking purple, she's a Sister-be-damned _target_.

She'd be a target anyway, but at least this way, the world hesitates a moment before it tries to take its due from her.

"C'mon, barnacle-brain, don't you wanna meet Vris?" Eridia asks him, mouth curling up at the edges.

He makes a _whoop_ing sound and bounces off, excited again. Eridia watches him go, and she only shakes her head fondly.

Her thoughts turn to Vriska.

Blueblood thug that he is, he's stupidly infuriating. But sometimes he makes her laugh, and it's okay between them. Eridia wouldn't quite say she cares about him—well, that's not right, either, because she _does_ care about him. It's more like she doesn't have the words to explain quite how annoyed he makes her, and how much she just wants to _shake_ him, sometimes.

It's not pitch, not yet, but Eridia thinks grimly that it might just go that way if she's not careful.

Vriska would rip her limb from limb, and while the burn would be a lovely, cleansing thing, there would be no one to take care of Fefear. There'd be no one to keep him bright and beautiful and clean. There'd be no one to keep him from going feral.

The thought of Fefear going feral makes Eridia want to up chuck.

(She can see it in the back of her mind. Fefear, Sister-green froth dripping from his mouth with his lips pulled away from his teeth as he _hisses_ at her. All his bones creak and his claws aim for her blood-pusher. He rips it out from her chest-cavity and she watches without comment as he eats her, entire. There's never any pain, and all she wants is to apologize for letting him get this way. _I'm sorry, Fef,_ she gurgles in the dream. _I'm sorry_.)

But then her beloved moirail there in front of her, and Eridia clings to him to remind herself that he's not feral, he's not gone, and she's got him in her hands. She watches the concern wash over him.

"Eri—dia?"

It's very rare that he uses her full name.

"It's okay, Fef," she mumbles, and tucks her face into the crook of his shoulder.

His arms come around her, and he sings something nonsense and off-key as he runs his claws through her hair. It's funny, because he still knows her better than anyone else on all of Alternia, and she calms under his grip.

She keeps Fefear stable, and he keeps her from losing her marbles to the gutters and the swill that leaks from the Capitol's ass-end into the ocean. Eridia looks up at him. The fuchsia flush across his gills is so familiar and so dear that she just has to pat his face to remind herself that he's quite real.

"Let's get outta here, yeah?"

Fef cackles. His grin is so bright, Eridia nearly has to look away.

"I'll krill th—em if they lookit us wrong, Dia," he breathes. "They won't hurt you, they won't!"

"Don't worry, Fef," Eridia says, and she loops her arm through his as they walk. Her little tugboat bobs in the water, and fuck if she's not bled and fought and scrabbled to make that little thing sea-tight. It's warm in the moonlight, and the salt doesn't get into the controls even on the worst nights.

"Go on, get, I need t'check somefin," Eridia says. She turns towards the lines painted along the hull, and pretends not to see the sheer _glee_ on Fefear's face as he sails over the railings and straight into the captain's seat.

Of course he would, that ridiculous fish.

Eridia runs her claws over the propeller—there's a little rust, but the whole shit thing is rust, so she's not so worried. Fef knows not to pry with the controls, so she's not worried about that, either. The tanks are leaking a little, but then, when _aren't_ they leaking a little?

The old girl'll get them to Vris, and that's what matters.

The ocean is calm, this early in the night. All done up in pastel shades of green and blue and purple, it is a reflection of the sky. The stars are out tonight, bright little sparks scattered across the atmosphere, and Eridia doesn't even wonder if she's ever going to see them up close.

Fefear won't get the chance, probably.

Eridia won't go anywhere without Fefear, so she probably won't, either.

They bob in the ocean, and Eridia guns the engine.

"You wanna see the mainland, Fef? We can take a detour, but you gotta go topside."

His head snaps around so fast she's afraid he's broken something important, and he nods fast and jerky. Eridia grins and says "Go on, then."

He's agile as a climb-beast as he swings himself out the window with his trident at his side. Eridia thinks she should scold him for bringing it, but she won't, mostly because if she thinks about it too long, she'll have to admit that she's secretly glad he did.

The ocean passes away beneath them.

They puff past the docks. Eridia doesn't need to look to know that Fefear is leaning far out past the observation deck's railing, leaning into the wind to reach towards the Capitol. She's scared that one day he's going to go with or without her, and then she'll lose him for good.

The blueblood haulers wolf-whistle at her boat, and Eridia rolls her eyes towards the sky. Those morons don't know what's gonna hit 'em—she brings Fefear to the Capitol, and she'd watch that city _burn_. She wouldn't even have to ask him, he'd just do it.

Vriska's rebellion better be worth all the shit they're going through, Eridia thinks grimly.

"Oi, Fef, geddown, we gotta go 'round the bend an s'always dangerous 'round there," she calls up to him. She doesn't even know if he hears her, because he's still staring at the docks behind them with a ferocious kind of hunger.

The pang of guilt is not unexpected, but Eridia _can't let him die_.

"Get _down_, fish-boy! Those monsters on the dock'll eat you _alive_, an you won't stand a chance," she calls again, and this seems to shake him of the trance. He slithers back down to her. He is tall and proud and Eridia sees a blasphemous king when she looks at him.

She loves him desperately.

And she will kill, rip, and tear to put him where he belongs if it will keep him alive. Eridia swears to all the Sisters—to all the Ladies, to even the Incoherent Sister—that she will end Alternia if it keeps Fefear alive and breathing and annoying the ever-living shit out of her.

Eridia has never been part of a rebellion.

But she will be part of one for her moirail.

Eridia's knuckles have gone a grey so pale as to be nearly white around the helm for lack of blood circulation, and she loosens her grip with practised ease. Her claws have dug into the already-chipped wood. She works them loose slowly, so that Fef doesn't notice.

She doesn't need him worrying about her, not with Vriska's hive on the horizon.

Fef's hand curls around her shoulder. It is the most comforting thing Eridia has ever had the pleasure to experience. She leans against him for a minute, lets herself be weak, and then she's all shark-teeth and steel again. She doesn't have time to be fishbellies and seafoam pale when she has a spider at her tail.

(Who is she kidding, she _always_ has time to be seafoam-pale when it comes to Fefear.)

She touches his hand for a split-second, and then she's pulling into one of the berths, and pulling the plug on the gas. "Oi, crew-boy, c'mere and kelp me tide up!"

Fef snickers, and does as she asks.

Together, they tie up the little tugboat. Eridia's hands are quick and efficient, but Fef is faster and he does his knots all wrong just to irk her. But mostly it ends in the both of them giggling into each other's shoulders like three-sweeps-old wrigglers with too much time on their hands.

Eridia doesn't know how much more time they'll have like this.

She knows that once they're in the thick of it, she and Fef might not get the privacy they've become so accustomed to. She'll take what she can get, and hope that he doesn't spill over into her other quadrants.

She does hate to share.

But not so much that she'll keep him from meeting Vris. Who knows, it might just quench his thirst for the outside world, and they could stop having that argument.

(Eridia doesn't believe it for a second.)

They walk hand-in-hand to the castle-hive that Vriska's built for himself and his spider-mother, all hollowed-out long lines and endless high towers. Eridia would be impressed if she weren't so bored.

Fef is disgustingly excited, but she can't really blame him.

"Fef, listen to me—"

Another voice cuts her off before she manages to get anything out at all.

"Well, fuck me, look who showed!"

Vriska is long-legged death, a wild roll of tongue and teeth with matted hair everywhere, mouth wet and vibrant blue. He lopes down towards them, and Eridia can feel how tense Fef goes. She wants to pat him all over to reassure him that nothing is going to happen, but she can already feel the stretch underneath his skin when Vriska is beginning to get close.

She's just about to wrap her arms around him, when Vriska tumbles into her and scoops her up. He's laughing, all spider-fingers that send stupidly familiar shivers up her spine.

Eridia's not even fussed.

"Oi, ugly, lemme down," she says, and knocks a half-hearted fist into his stomach. Vriska sets her down and bends down to nip at her ear, and if this wasn't him, she'd say that this was _way_ too red for her liking. But this is just kind of how Vriska is, with everyone—asshole plays grab-ass for the sake of grab-ass.

Also, she's pretty sure he's taking an obscene amount of enjoyment out of how stiff Fefear's gone.

Vris notices things like that.

Eridia bats him away.

"Vris, this is—" she starts, and she only gets those three words out before Fef is on Vriska, standing toe-to-toe and nose-to-nose and _snarling_.

"Fef, Fef, _what_'re you _doing_—?!" Eridia panics, and pulls him away. He's raging under her hands, spitting and manic and _Sisters, did he finally—what happened_?

Vris is chuckling, eight pupils trained on Fef twisting underneath her claws.

"Well, well, you're the fish everyone talks about. Interesting," Vris says, and sneers down through his glasses at Fef. It only sends Fef further into his fit, and Eridia wants to lay them both out for being so _stupid_.

"Now is _not_ the time for kismesis-kisses," she hisses through her teeth at Vriska, and shooshes Fef as well as she can. Her hands on his face bring him back slow, and he stills as she strokes away his rage.

Vris _giggles_.

Eridia shoots him the most scathing look she can manage on such short notice. It does not make him wither. She curses him in every language she knows and in several she doesn't, and makes up the swear words as she goes along. If only the docklings could hear her; she thinks they would be impressed.

Fef blinks up at her.

"Sor—ry, Dia," he mumbles.

She clutches at him, presses down as close as she can. She doesn't even care if it's obscene, god, she could fill a pale-porn mag with her and Fef alone (not that she ever would), and she doesn't care that Vris is watching.

What_ever_.

"It's okay, it's okay, Fef. C'mon, up you get, sun's not gonna wait," she murmurs gently. They stand together, and they both look at Vris. Fef's straining for a fight, trying to reach out and sink his teeth into the soft flesh at Vriska's throat and tear him to pieces.

Vriska's grin is all teeth.

"You'll do," he says. "You'll do."

—

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_tbc_.

**notes2**: why is writing hamsteak _so hard_


	2. discovering the waterfront

**disclaimer**: disclaimed.  
**dedication**: to Jupiter, because everything is her fault anyways.  
**notes**: disgusting young hate and palemance everywhere. also Equiia, who is the light of my life.

**chapter title**: discovering the waterfront  
**summary**: Eridia Ampora is not prepared to be walking her moirail through the mess of bleeding gutterbeast entrails that is the beginning of the Second Rebellion. — genderbent hemo-flip; Eridan, Feferi, Vriska, Equiia.

—

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Eridia has never seen a pair of trolls fall into kismessitude as fast as Fefear and Vriska fall into kismessitude. It's ugly, sappy, _terrible_ young hate, and it's truly something to behold.

If Eridia didn't know better, she would think Vriska's interest in her moirail is faked, and then she'd have to kill him because _no one_ fucks with Fefear like that. He keeps flirting with her (because that's what Vris _does_, he _flirts_), but not pitch-flirting, ugh, it's like some eldritch combination of ash and red-rom and _ew_, what kind of shit-mix is _that_?

Somehow, though, she knows it isn't.

Vris is serious about his huge hate-crush, and Eridia's feeling pretty ash for his stupid cerulean ass anyway, these days. Fef sneers and gathers her up, snapping when Vris gets too close.

It's so disgustingly adorable, Eridia thinks about papping him into calm and then sending them back at each other. It's good, she knows. Fef needs the socialization, and she can't keep him locked away no matter _how_ much she thinks it'll keep him breathing.

She agreed to this.

He agreed to this.

_They_ agreed to this. They agreed that the kingdom could use a proper snail-blood king on the throne. They agreed, and she can't take that back regardless of how much she wants to.

Vris'll be good for him, and Eridia stares out one of the high windows of Vriska's castle-hive while she knots her claws in Fef's soft hair and revels in the sweet deep ache that touching him causes. She loves him like starlight and moonbeams and the endless well of silence on the inside of her eyes.

There is no one in the entire world that loves their moirail more than Eridia loves Fefear.

They sit in golden light in a hive that is not their own, and wait daybreak out.

Fef doesn't sleep again.

Eridia's not at all surprised.

Instead they play dice, hiding far below the surface to leave the towers to their sunlight. Vriska's built himself into the rock here, away from the burning of the sun during the day.

They play dice, and Eridia cheats but Fefear still wins.

Loaded or not, the gods seem to love Fef far more than they should. Eridia would think it wasn't fair, except she really can't blame them at all. She kisses all his claws when he reaches for her.

This is disgusting.

They are disgusting.

But the ocean sings in Eridia's bones when she's this close to him, and she can't ever get him out of her blood-pusher. Not that she'd want to, but sometimes it's hard.

And it's not long until Vriska lopes back into the hive, hair a tangled mess around his knife-cut grin. He is all long-legged killing grace, sharpened claws to tear a troll's throat out. His fangs are the same, horns out.

Eridia can only sigh in exasperation when the first thing he and Fef do is try to gore the life out of each other. It's a kissmesitude thing, but they really don't have the time for this.

She separates them. Eridia isn't small, but she isn't very big, either: she is wiry and fierce, and it doesn't take her long at all to get them off of each other.

"Oi, Vris, don't ya have somethin better t'do?" she asks. Her hands settle onto her hips, and she eyeballs the both of them. This is way too ashen for her liking, but Fef gives her his best barkbeast eyes, and Vris doesn't even have the sense to look ashamed; he just gives her the biggest shit-eating grin Eridia has ever seen in her life. This is so not how she wanted to spend her day.

What would these morons do without her.

"Idiot," she says. Not a one of them knows who she's speaking to, not even Eridia herself. She squints at them, and just shakes her head.

Vriska takes advantage of this situation.

(Somehow this surprises absolutely no one.)

He loops his arms around her waist and grins with all his teeth right her in face. He lifts her up, too, high off the ground.

Fef's already growling behind them.

Silly jealous fishboy.

Like she could ever be this disgustingly pale for anyone else.

"Put me down, Vris," Eridia grumbles. She pokes him hard on the nose, and he laughs. His air chute rattles when he does, claws contracting into her waist with the movement of it. She barely feels it, too busy squirming away so she can get to Fef before he snaps and tries to kill Vriska when nobody's looking.

Most volatile kissmesitude she's ever seen in her life.

"Where'd ya go, anyway, huh?" Eridia asks when she's finally got away. She's already reached up to run her fingers through Fef's hair, and when he holds her like this, like she's the precious one, she can barely keep herself from bursting into ugly tears. She's not paying attention to Vris at all.

Vriska jumps up. "Lusiifuck, I nearly forgot!"

And then he's gone again.

Eridia can't bring herself to care.

She and Fef hold onto each other, and normally they don't do this when other trolls are around because they're, well, Eridia is private. Fef could care less—he'd be perfectly happy to cuddle the fuck out of her all the time, regardless of who's around.

Eridia can't even blame him for it.

Fef's voicebox vibrates softly into her aurals, off-key and thin against the fluttering of her vestigial gills. It's all Eridia can do to tuck up against him to keep herself from doing something embarrassing like purring. With her face in his chest-cavity, she is quite nearly content.

And then, of course, Vriska comes out of nowhere and _ruins everything_.

"Get a 'coon, you two, no one wants to see thaaaaaaaat!" he sings.

"Shut up, Vris," Eridia says mildly. "Shove yer head in a bucket, no one likes yer jokes!"

"Ooooooooh, so _crude_, darling! Talk dirty to me!"

Neither Fef nor Eridia acknowledges him, this time.

"But I do have a present, my dears," Vris says slyly.

Eridia and Fef both turn to look at him—of course ignoring Vris never lasted long. His presents aren't always the healthiest of things, but it's better to pay attention to him than it is to die—short-term pain versus long-term nothingness? The choice is obvious.

"What did ya get inta now, Vris?" Eridia asks, eyeing him warily. She's planted herself firmly between her moirail and their madly-grinning rebel leader, just on the off-chance Vriska decided to pull out a sword or something else insulting.

"Thiiiiiiiis—" Vris says dramatically, waving his arms in an over-elaborate gesture, "—is Equiia. She's our linchpin. She's going to get us into the castle so you can be _bait_!"

There was a moment of silence.

"Who?"

"Oh, that—EQUIIIIIIIIAAAAAAAA!" Vris thunders, and the door opens.

Eridia thinks she's never seen such a pretty troll in all her life.

Equiia is built on pixie-delicate lines. The flush on her cheeks is a lovely bright blue—barely a step up from her own salt-lick violet, Eridia thinks acidly, but still a definite step up—and she's standing in front of them, eyes hidden behind broken shades and clutching at the hem of her shirt.

"Hello," she says, voice low and softly musical. Her smile is like starlight.

Wow, Eridia is kind of flushed for this girl.

(Eridia is flushed for the _whole fucking world_, so this is not a fucking surprise, either.)

"Hey, kid, take the shades off! They can't see your eyes!"

The troll-girl looks very uncomfortable, shifting nervously from foot to foot. It takes her a minute, but she does reach up to take the glasses off her face. They crack under her grip.

Eridia thinks _Oh Sisters, she's got the strength_ and nearly floats on air. It's near rarer than any other mutation, but it's one of the most beneficial.

She is so flushed for this girl she is going to be sick.

Vriska throws a careless arm around Equiia's shoulders. He grins wicked sharp.

"She's the Ebon's own matesprite, now, isn't she," he says, laughs flung out wild. "Aren't you, Equiia?"

"I—yes, I suppose I am, Mister Serket."

Eridia sighs. Well, there goes that.

"How's this supposed ta work, Vris?" Eridia asks. She very carefully doesn't mention the fact that Equiia is betraying her mateprite—that's normally not something people ought to mention in polite society, and Eridia likes politics. She understands how this goes.

Vriska shrugs his shoulders with all a cawbeast finesse. "Equiia gets you in, and you find shit out."

"Real helpful, Vris. Real precise," Eridia sighs. "What d'ya want me t'find?"

"Anything, Dia, my daaaaaaaaaarling."

She ignores his terrible hate-flirting out of long practice. But she does glance at Fefear out of the corner of her eye; her moirail is winding himself up, just like he always does. The thought of being away from him for any length of time sends her into fits, too, but she deals with it a little better.

He reaches for her.

Eridia allows him to sweep her up. His arms fold around her, cool and safe as the ocean in the early evening, before the wind takes over and turns it rough during the night. Fef runs his hands through her hair—she's cut it short again, it's harder to hold onto in a fight—sclaws catching at the top of her aurals. She hisses at him, pain a bright white along her nerves, but she's not really mad.

She's had worse done to her than Fef's claws in her skin.

"I won' be gone long," she says. She doesn't know if Vris and Eq have turned away. To be honest, she doesn't care. "Be back with the tide like always, Fef."

Fef touches the sides of her face. "Glub," he says. "Glub."

Her blood-pusher throbs.

"Glub," Eridia agrees. "Glub."

She flushes bright purple when she turns around, and Vris and Eq are staring at them.

"What?" Eridia demads, breathing out harsh through her nose. She can feel the fins on the side of her throat flaring out with her ire. "What're ye lookin at?"

"Nothin', darling," drawls Vriska.

Eridia thinks dreamily about stabbing him in the throat.

Ah, if only.

(Vriska is _everyone's_ kismesis. Hers, Fef's—Sisters, Vris is probably pitch for his Sister-damned matesprite, but who fucking knows, Eridia's never met the crazy bitch.)

She looks at Fef once more. Thinks _you poor stupid wwreck, howw do you do this to yourself_. He's beautiful and he's hers, and it will never be enough when they can't be together.

She pats his precious face.

_Wwe are still here. Wwe are still here_.

"When d'we leave?"

Equiia crams her glasses back into her face—the lenses crack, and an intense throb of pity washes through Eridia's vasculars. Sisters take it; she is so not going to be hitting on the _Ebon's own matesprite_. That is just really not okay.

Especially given that what Eridia is trying to do is unseat him.

An unseated Ebon means a dead Ebon.

(Not that she wants him dead. But it's him or Fef, and Eridia simply refuses to live in a world where her moirail doesn't exist. Some nights the only reason she wakes up and gets out of the recuperacoon is because Fefear is there to toss her into the ocean and get salt-rime into everything and sit and watch the moon go down together. Some nights he's the only reason she gives the world a chance, and Eridia will never be willing to give that up. She loves him too much.)

So they go, and Eridia doesn't look back.

She thinks that if she does, she'll see Fefear.

If she sees Fef, she won't be able to leave at all.

—

Equiia moves through the world with an undeniable grace that Eridia only wishes she could emulate.

They are both tactile but touch-starved, and it takes bumping and bruises for the two troll-girls to find a rhythm that works. They walk in the swing of each other's arms, watching each other's backs because that is how Alternia works for the low-blooded; Equiia might have the strength, and Eridia might be small and wiry and fast, but there are only two of them.

Quite frankly, two girls against all of Alternia?

Not the greatest odds Eridia has ever seen in her life.

But that is what they have, and so that is what they go with. The conversation takes them a while, too, and for a long time they are stilted and tongue-tied.

"Why?" Eridia finally asks.

"Pardon?"

"Why are ye—why're ya doin this? Vris said the Ebon's yer matesprite an…?"

Equiia's shoulders scrunch up around her aurals—on a side-note, Eridia thinks landdweller aurals are so _weird_, she's never seen anything like the soft-curve-points in her life—and she flushes bright blue again.

"Aramis, he's—you must understand. He is… he is complicated," Equiia says. Her fists go tight for a moment. Eridia can already see the blood welling up under her claws. "He is… he is very kind."

They don't talk about the blood hierarchy. Eridia has a feeling that that is where this is going, and she doesn't want to hear it. Her entire life is built on the fact that her blood is lower than dirt, screams _USE ME_ in a way that no other blood-colour does (and she very carefully does not think about her snail-blooded moirail, lower even than she is); it is not something that she is going to give up.

Not now, maybe not ever.

"I owe Mister Serket," Equiia says. She tucks a long gleaming sheaf of hair behind her pointed aural, and she looks Eridia in the eye. "I owe him very much."

Eridia snorts. "Ya don't owe him nothing. Vris 's a douche, he ain't worth the heartache."

"Your moirail seems to think different—" Equiia claps a hand over her mouth. "—I, oh, I didn't mean—!"

Eridia laughs, but it comes out choked and sounding more like a sob than anything else. Her stupid moirail, her beautiful boy, everything is Fef, Fef, Fef.

"No," she says. "You're right. They _hate_ each other."

The emphasis is there just enough that Equiia will get the picture. It's hard not to—she was there when Fef and Vris were eyeing each other like a pair of wild animals or daymares trapped in bodies that they had no business being trapped in, and she would have seen the utter horrible young-hate-ness of it all. There is no way to get around it.

Eridia smiles out of the corner of her mouth and tips her head back to get a face full of moonshine.

"What about yer quadrants?" Eridia asks, because quadrants are pretty important things, and they're easy conversation fodder. "Kismesis? Moirail?"

"It is complicated."

"A lotta things seem complicated with you, huh?"

Equiia's smile is small and out of the corner of her mouth. "I suppose."

"More complicate than yer matesprite?"

This time she does laugh, full-out. It's a lovely sound, gravel-rough but real and honest and steady. "If only it were that simple!"

They talk about the foods they like (Eridia likes all manner of sweet things; Equiia laughs and shoves an apple into her hand), and what they like to do with their spare time (Equiia likes mechanics. Eridia doesn't really have spare time). They talk about clothes and breaking things and at the end of it all, Eridia is flushingly happy to realize that she has made a friend.

She has never really had friends her own gender.

She has never really had friends at all.

This is probably the best feeling in the world.

They walk for a long time. The Capitol isn't far away, but they stick to the shadows and the alleyways because they are the safest. If they do get into a scrap (Eridia thinks grimly that it will be a miracle if they _don't_ get into a scrap), they can back that shit up against the wall; they'll have leverage and the advantage.

Eridia knows without knowing that Equiia won't ditch her for safety.

That's not how friendship works, she's pretty sure.

Along the main drag, trolls and their lusii amble along. The air stinks of chum and spilled fish-meal—it ebbs as they skid further into the Capitol, replaced with sick-sweet fruit and the enticing scent of spiced meat.

Eridia's never been inside the Ebon's palace, before.

There's an awful kind of foreboding, and Eridia revels in it. She has no idea how many sweeps it's been since someone with blood as cold as hers has been past these doors—it must be cohorts and cohorts, maybe even a hundred of them. A thousand sweeps since her ancestors walked here, in this palace with its graceful arches and gold chariots painted on the walls.

Eridia vows with all the blood in her body to tear it to the ground and put her beloved on the throne where he belongs. She will never forgive them for ruining this for them all.

_DEATH TO ALL LANDDWELLERS_!

Except that would probably not go over well with her new friend.

Sadly.

They circle around the palace. Eridia does her level best not to stare when Equiia pushes a little door in—it blends in with the wall near perfectly, and Eridia thinks _servant entrance. Classy_.

It's not classy at all.

But Equiia smiles her starlight-smile.

"Welcome to the palace, Miss Ampora. Try not to get into too much trouble?"

Eridia grins.

"Don't worry," she says. "I will."

—

.

.

.

.

.

_tbc_.

**notes2**: this fucking chapter made me weep SALTY TEARS OF BLOOD.


End file.
